How to Talk Confidently About Fertility Awareness Methods With A Doubtful OBGYN, Partner, or Literally Anyone
Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABM) and modern, evidence-based methods of natural family planning (NFP) bring a wealth of helpful information and powerful insights into your health. FABMs can help you address and treat symptoms related to PMS and PCOS without using synthetic hormones, monitor your fertility, and clue you into any hormonal balances you might be […]
Here’s How Birth Control *Really* Works
In August, a Cosmopolitan article came across my newsfeed several times, titled “Here’s *Exactly* How Birth Control Works.” In it, readers are greeted by an ad for a new birth-control pill. Readers are then offered a breakdown of eight different birth control methods explaining how they work—except, not really. Sure, at a rudimentary level, yes, […]
Good and Bad News Concerning the LAM Method During the Postpartum Period
If you’ve been learning about Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABMs), you’ve probably heard that you can’t get pregnant while breastfeeding. You probably also know of someone who has. So what gives? In order to trust a natural family planning method, you need to have all the information—that is, all the scientifically proven information, not just anecdotes […]
How Fertility Awareness Goes Beyond Politics or Creed
Have you ever heard that “Fertility Awareness-Based Methods are for _____?” For hippies? For Catholics? For conspiracy theorists? There’s a lot of ideas out there and that to use a Fertility Awareness-Based Method (FABM) for family planning, you have to fit a certain box and hold certain ideologies. But the truth is that the “type […]
Three Science-backed, Natural Ways to Ease Childbirth and the Postpartum Period
While many people want to have children one day, few people actually look forward to the act of giving birth. Labor, delivery, and the postpartum period are often depicted in media as times of impossible desperation and exhaustion. There’s some truth to these depictions, as childbirth and the period that follows can be among the […]
What’s the Status on Male Birth Control?
For the past several years, many of us have seen headlines referencing the development of birth control drugs for men. It does seem like for too long women alone have borne the burden of pregnancy prevention, despite how baby-making requires two parties to take place. Further, since men are fertile 100% of the time, while […]
The Surprising Link Between Birth Control and Skin Cancer
Recent numbers released by the American Academy of Dermatology revealed a dramatic spike in the incidence of melanoma cases among young women. Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer, and for women aged 18-39, its rates have increased by 800% from 1970 to 2009. In Caucasian women under 44, the number of cases […]
When Getting Your ‘Tubes Tied’ Isn’t as Tidy as it Sounds
“Are you and your husband thinking about having more?” my well-meaning midwife recently asked me at my 6-week postpartum check-up. “Yes, definitely, in a little while,” was my immediate answer. Despite now having the so-called “perfect” American family of one little boy and one (newborn) little girl, my husband and I do hope to have […]
10 Reasons to Consider Switching from Birth Control to Fertility Awareness
Are you think about getting off birth control? As someone who took hormonal contraceptives in the past to reduce unwanted symptoms of my menstrual cycle, I now feel greater agency over my reproductive health by charting my cycle with a Fertility Awareness-Based Method (FABM). After being trained by a certified FABM instructor (who also happened […]
Guiding Young Girls Toward Fertility Appreciation
If you were to describe your feelings about your first period, what words would you use? Excited, honored, matter-of-fact, relieved, scared, resigned, disgusted? Were you confident in your knowledge of what was happening in your body and proud that it was beginning to function in this womanly way? Usually, that’s not the case. For most […]